Jean Stories: A New Website Dedicated to All Things Denim

“If there’s anything in people’s closets that has good stories, it’s jeans,” says Jane Herman Bishop, who with friend and fellow Vogue writer Florence Kane launched Jean Stories, a website devoted to just that. “You wear a pair intensely for a period of time to the point where those periods of your life are identified with the denim that you wore. They’re like a time stamp.” The duo wanted to create a site that not only acts as a guide to all things denim—from where to get dungarees repaired to a roundup of the best new flares—but also serves as a place for interviews with editors, designers, models, and muses. “We start with someone’s favorite pair, but then let the conversation go into all different directions about how that person lives and loves and works,” says Bishop, describing the “Love Stories” feature. In another column called “Flashbacks,” contributors will share old vintage shots of themselves in jeans and describe what was happening at the time—not only personally but also in fashion, politics, or music. Take, for example, Pamela Love, who revitalized a pair of J Brands with Grateful Dead patches made by her illustrator husband, or artist Shantell Martin, who dug up doodle-covered Levi’s from her Central Saint Martins days.

So does a website solely dedicated to a type of fabric seem like overkill? Not to this twosome, who are happy to bring their personal love affair with denim to light. “I probably have 60 pairs,” says Bishop, including the first ever 7 for All Mankinds (“I’ll never get rid of them!”). Get her going, and Kane will wax poetic on the waistbands of 3×1 jeans, which she says mimic those on Balenciaga trousers. With shoppable links to other sites—where you can buy exact replicas or similar styles—and social media components (use #jeanstories to see your picture appear on the website), the pair hopes to tap into everyone’s desire to find the perfect jeans. But more than anything, denim serves as the entry point into other people’s lives. Says Kane, “In every meeting we’ve had, someone will interrupt us to talk about their jeans.”